In the mid ’60s as a graduate student at Stanford I ran all my computer programs on “big iron” (IBM main frame computers). I spent hours and hours punching up cards. I would submit the deck to an operator behind a window (a glass one!). The window always annoyed me. People who ran those computers seemed to have “attitude.” They were in control. To get my job to run ahead of the queue I had to “kiss up.” I was good at it. This does not mean I liked it.
In November 1971 my life changed forever, though at the time I did not know it. On that date, Intel released the world’s first microprocessor--the 4004--intended for embedding into electronic devices. It did not take long for hobbyists to discover they could build a computer with this thing. It was not until 1974 that a company in Albuquerque, NM starting selling the Altair computer kit as advertised in Electronics Magazine (January 1975). It featured the 8-bit Intel 8080 chip and included the CP/M Operating System (OS) along with the programming language BASIC written by a kid named Bill Gates. The microcomputer revolution was on. Hundreds of microcomputer companies were springing up from garage operations everywhere. Startups like Apple, Tandy, Commodore, and others were offering products. With the introduction in 1979 of the VisiCalc spreadsheet on the Apple computer, engineers now had an excuse to introduce the microcomputer as a business tool. But quite frankly, these engineers were viewed as hobbyists at heart. Real engineers used real computers (IBM, DEC, et. al.). Regardless, these engineers loved microcomputers because they were not beholden to anyone in IT (then called the Data Processing Department) to use it. Even though the OS was command driven, it was not difficult to learn the handful of commands.
In 1980 a mechanical engineer from Fluor Corporation, Tom Lazear, introduced a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software program for the Apple IIe called CADapple. Now we had software to help make engineering drawings. This was now the start of the CAD revolution. Engineers sensed something big was about to happen. It did.
August 12, 1981 my life was irreversibly changed. IBM introduced a 16-bit microcomputer, the so called Personal Computer (PC). Engineers/hobbyists were coming out of the closet in droves, myself included, to get one. Why? It was a great computer, but more importantly it was now getting the stamp of approval from Big Blue. The real computer revolution was officially on. The PC came with three available operating systems. One was CPM-86 from Digital Research, the second UCSD p-System from Softech Microsystems, and finally the IBM-branded DOS from Microsoft. The most surprising announcements were that they included the source-code listing of the ROM BIOS chip and also provided the schematics for the I/O bus. Little did IBM suspect that by doing so a floodgate would open to cloners. Those that simply copied the soured-code met with legal disaster. Many of them were naïve as to how copyright laws applied to ROMs. The Eagle PC, which I owned, was one such guilty manufacturer and was put out of business by IBM. But as time went on companies found workarounds and IBM eventually lost control of the market they created, a clear indication of the good things that can happen when things are at least somewhat open.
Like the microcomputers in the ’70s, engineers who owned a PC were not beholden to anyone. The computer was theirs and using the OS did not require help from anyone. The folks in the IT Department were not happy about this. Their job security was now a concern.
Little did anyone suspect that black clouds were forming for these unsuspecting happy engineers. The good news was they were no longer called hobbyists. Stay tuned.
......to be continuted in Part II
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